Children of the Stars

I’ve just put Children of the Stars on Itch.io.

Set in 1983, Children of the Stars is a science fiction first-contact freeform set in an alternate timeline where aliens are secretly on Earth. Decisions made during the game will affect future games – and maybe even the future of humanity itself!

Children of the Stars is the third in the series, following All Flesh is Grass (also on Itch) and The Roswell Incident (published through Freeform Games.

Writing history

I wrote Children of the Stars in 2022, and because I was preparing Writing Freeform Larps, I found it useful to work through the process again.

And I wrote about writing Children of the Stars here, on the blog, in four posts.

• Part 1: The game’s genesis and the first part of writing.
• Part 2: Developing the characters and background.
• Part 3: Writing plots and pulling everything together.
• Part 4: Running Children of the Stars.

I have so far run it twice, once online and once at Consequences 2022. Assuming that I stick with my current plan, I expect I will next run it at Consequences 2026. (I want to run All Flesh is Grass in 2025.)

A long gap between publishing

There are many reasons for the long gap between finishing Children of the Stars and getting it ready for publication. These are some of them:

• I’m easily distracted. I’m usually working on three or four projects at any one time. It would have come out quicker if I’d been focused only on Children of the Stars. But I like the variety.
• Before I could publish Children of the Stars, I wanted to first publish the two games earlier in the series. The Roswell Incident was published in 2023, and All Flesh is Grass earlier this year, in 2024.

I also worked on the next episodes, Messages from Callisto (first run in 2023) and The Stars our Destination (first run in 2024).

But how to publish it?

It’s taken me a while to figure out how to publish Children of the Stars. As I’ve mentioned before, decisions made in earlier games affect what happens in later games. So, in All Flesh is Grass, the players can set up situations that affect later games. (Indeed, the decisions affect whether certain characters actually appear.) 

I’ve run Children of the Stars twice so far, and in both cases, a particular solution was chosen. So as part of getting it ready for publication, I’ve had to write additional material for those alternative timestreams. That’s been fun, but has meant that getting Children of the Stars ready for publication hasn’t been as simple as just top-and-tailing it.

My first idea was to create lots of alternative files for the alternate timelines – but that got confusing really quickly. So, instead, I’m using coloured text in MS Word files to denote different timestreams. The GM will then have to choose which of the coloured text suits their campaign so far.

Luckily, my friend James G ran All Flesh is Grass recently, and I’ve shared Children of the Stars with him. He gave me some good feedback and confirmed that the coloured text approach works well.

What’s next?

Now that Children of the Stars is done, I will start working on episode 6, which involves a mission to Callisto. It doesn’t have a title yet.

Once I’ve run that, I’ll get it ready for Consequences 2025. And then, I will start to work on getting episode 4 (Messages from Callisto) into a publishable stage.

So that should keep me out of mischief for a good while.

Reflections on a campaign larp

So from what I could tell and what the players told me (and others afterwards), the players enjoyed my two freeforms at Consequences. Several players want to find out what’s coming next, and other players (who missed one or both episodes) want me to run them again.

Which has me in a bit of a quandary.

The big idea

So a recap.

I’m writing a series of connected freeform larps set in the same universe. The freeforms are based on the science fiction first-contact novels and movies (and other media) that I have always adored.

Some characters appear in multiple episodes. Some characters appear only once. The games are always written for 13 players (although I’ve managed when Life has interfered). The games are also designed to be independent – you need not play in the previous episodes, but I hope you’ll get more out of them if you do.

The games so far are:

The Roswell Incident: Kind of a prequel. Sets the scene and introduces some of the main themes. This is now published by Freeform Games.

All Flesh is Grass: Based on the 1965 Clifford D Simak novel of the same name.

Children of the Stars: The players grapple with another alien race. Friendly or not?

Messages from Callisto: A mission to Callisto has unsettling news.

The Stars our Destination: The next game, which I’ve started, is set on Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

So far, I have run each game twice – so I have two alternate “timelines” taking place.

Timeline 1 is is an online-only game, started in February 2022. It’s suffered from occasional technical difficulties.

Timeline 2 is a face-to-face series that started at Retcon in February 2023 and continued at Consequences in 2023.

There are a few differences between the two – aside from the differences the players have created. I have changed some character names and alien details (one alien has completely changed from my original ideas).

But I’m keen to carry on with them. The two timelines are diverging, which is both scary and exciting.

(I should also note that while I have a vague sense of where I’m heading with the overall arc, I don’t know how I’ll get there…)

Multiple runs

At a convention like Consequences, it’s common to have multiple runs of popular games. This year, The Ashlight Labyrinth and Incense and Insensibility both ran twice. 

While that’s an easy thing to do for a one-shot, that’s a little trickier for ongoing games.

One easy answer is to start each episode with a summary that basically says, “Forget what happened last time; this is the real history.” As I understand it, that’s what Tony Mitton’s Linfarn Run series does.

But I don’t want to do that. I want the players' decisions in an episode to affect later episodes. If the players decide to multilaterally disarm and dismantle the world’s nuclear stockpile, then that should be part of the history going into later episodes.

I guess I could run (say) Children of the Stars twice at the same convention. They could have a common background (let’s say Timeline 2), but I would then end up with Timeline 2A and 2B (or is that Timeline 3 and 4?).

But that’s not what I want to do. I’d rather start Timeline 3 with The Roswell Incident and start afresh.

Playing previous episodes

The other issue is whether players who join the game at episode 4 (say), would like to play an earlier episode. They already know some of what happened in those episodes (because it’s part of the background) – but would playing in an earlier episode appeal?

I don’t know.

I’d like to think that my games are enjoyable enough that they would have a good time playing even if they already knew some details. 

And freeforms are often re-run, and players often play them again. At the recent Retcons, I played in two freeforms that I had played previously – in one case, I even played the same character. It didn’t affect my enjoyment – I had either forgotten the details, or deliberately overlooked them.

So, I hope that players will enjoy playing in earlier episodes. (And if it were me, I’d be tempted to push the game in different directions.) I guess I’ll find out in due course.

2-3 monthly campaign

I guess my ideal approach for the campaign would be to run them at 2-3 monthly intervals with a stable of players.

If anyone is in the Leeds/Harrogate/York region and wants to organise such a thing, let me know!

Available for others

A final constraint is that I plan to make the games available for others to play.

So far, The Roswell Incident is available via Freeform Games as one of their murder mystery games (although the main mystery isn’t a murder…)

Next to get into shape is All Flesh is Grass, which I hope to start work on shortly. When that’s done, I’ll make it available on my itch.io page. With a fair wind, I hope to get that up in early 2024.

However, making a game where earlier games affect later games presents a few challenges. For Children of the Stars, I anticipated one big outcome and several little outcomes. (And there was another outcome I hadn’t predicted!)

So for Messages from Callisto, I prepared a set of notes for each character based on the big outcome and briefings for the little outcomes. And between the games, I hurriedly stuffed character packets accordingly.

However, as the timeline goes on, that’s likely to become more complicated.

So I will probably provide the game as MS Word documents (rather than a pdf as I might normally do), and highlight the areas that need changing. (It’s that or provide different files for each option – along with really complicated instructions for assembling character packets.)

I am already taking the highlighter approach for The Stars our Destination as I am already writing different sections of the text changes for different outcomes.

To sum up

So:

• I want to keep the games in their own timelines. I want the in-game decisions to matter. So I’m unlikely to run them more than once at the same convention.
• I will make them available for others to run.
• The next game will be The Stars our Destination and is set on Rapa Nui. The title may change (but it’s unlikely). I hope to run that online in the first half of 2024 (Timeline 1), and then in person at Consequences (Timeline 2).
• I will probably run another game at Consequences, but whether that is episode 6 or something else, at this point I have no idea.
• I’m not sure when I’m going to start Timeline 3.

My first Consequences

So last weekend I attended Passionate Consequences, the freeform larp convention (with some boardgames) held every year in a holiday camp near Poole.

Loads of people found it hard to believe that this was my first Consequences. Many of my larp friends attend – and many games played were ones written at Peaky. Consequences started in 2007, but as it’s on the south coast (near Poole), attending it always meant taking five days (including travel). And while I had a day job and a young family, that was more leave than I was comfortable taking.

Now I don’t have a day job, it’s easier to take leave, and so in 2023, I went to my first Consequences.

Consequences

Consequences is held at Naish holiday village, so the accommodation is mostly holiday chalets. My accommodation (a two-bed apartment, not actually a chalet) was fine – it was clean and (once we’d figured out the heating) warm. As ever in this sort of accommodation, there were never enough towel rails.

Typical accomodation / gaming lodge

The accommodation is all self-catered, and I ate a mixture of ready meals and bar meals. Unfortunately, the apartment’s oven was a little shonky. I’d bought a non-microwavable shepherd's pie but couldn’t get the oven up to temperature. So tipped the pie out of its foil tray onto a plate and used the microwave, and all was fine.

Thursday

I set off from Yorkshire at about 9, having walked the dog, and after a long but easy drive, arrived at about 3 pm. I checked in and chatted with old friends.

Horrospital

My first game was the tricky-to-pronounce Horrospital, a horror-comedy game by Tony Mitton for 25 players. Horror in freeforms is never very horrific. It is inevitably played for laughs and involves comedy vampires, werewolves, demons and the like. It’s always over the top and never very scary. Which sums up Horrospital nicely.

I played Orderly Peeler, an undercover cop. I was investigating a series of murders, and I got much of the way through solving it, but couldn’t quite get the final piece. This is partly because I was tired, but mainly because I didn’t sit down and discuss the murders properly with the character who could have filled in some gaps.

(I was tired not because of the long drive, but because the game started at 8 pm and I’m often tucked up in bed at 10 pm. I remember starting to flag at about 9:45 pm and thinking, blimey, we’ve got a way to go yet.) 

Anyway, Horrospital was very enjoyable, my favourite bit was explaining to everyone that the reason I was investigating the murders was because I was studying for an NVQ. I’m sure everyone saw through my nonsense.

Friday

I woke at 6 am (as usual) after a not-very-long night. Although I returned to the chalet early(ish), I didn’t go straight to bed as I wanted to relax and unwind first. I also needed to review my character for the morning’s game. I was originally signed up to play Sam, but a last-minute dropout meant I changed to Stevie. Who I hadn’t read. So I needed to read, absorb and take notes. Perhaps unwisely, I did that before going to bed and, as a result, got only three or four hours of sleep.

Antarctic Base 13

This was a ten-player tense SF game set at an isolated research station in the Antarctic – with strong The Thing vibes. Written by Rich Perry and Alli Mawhinney, I’ve wanted to play it for a while. I’m glad I did, as it was great.

I played Stevie, the comms operator. Which meant I had access to lots of information – and I didn’t like going outside. My favourite parts were searching the base when everyone else had gone outside and doing something in plain sight in front of other players who were so caught up in their own thing that they didn’t notice me doing it.

It’s not perfect – the character sheets need a bit of work, and a couple of bits feel creaky, but the core concept is great. 

After that, I had a short nap to wake up and lost badly at Dune Imperium, which I’d not played before. (I can see why it’s popular, but it’s a bit long for my liking.)

Children of the Stars

This was the first of the two games I was running, and I was looking forward to seeing how it would work. I had 13 players – and it went really well. I had a few pre-flight nerves because the first run (online) didn’t go well for various reasons. But this time, it went off without a hitch.

Discussions about weighty matters...

The players bought into the ongoing story. A couple had played in earlier episodes, and I had four playing in both this and Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. And I could see the decisions I’d given everyone were causing them to think.

As ever, I made copious notes and have a few changes to make – mostly clarifications rather than anything game-breaking.

Saturday

I woke with a headache on Saturday and decided to eat in the restaurant rather than battle the kitchen appliances. My headache had cleared by the time it was to play my first game.

Old Nick’s Game

Old Nick’s Game is written by Charlie Paull, Alan Paull, Roger Gammans, and Nick Hollingsworth. It’s for ten players and is set in Hell and is based (loosely) on Old Harry’s Game, a Radio 4 comedy which I know of but haven’t listened to.

I will admit to being slightly apprehensive about this game as I wasn’t sure about my character. I was playing Antonia, the mother-in-law of another character. Gender didn’t seem very important in the game, so I wasn’t worried about that, but my character didn’t believe that they were in Hell – instead, this was all a rag week stunt. But the character sheet felt muddled as a result.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried as the game was great. It played really nicely, and I had a whale of a time pretending we weren’t in Hell. I particularly enjoyed threatening to report Satan to HR if he continued his bullying. My favourite bit was discussing my favourite fiction (which I decided was Mills & Boon romances) with Satan, and he summoned Jane Austen from the pits of Hell – and she turned out to be extremely foul-mouthed. She must have had a very good editor!

Between games

The most important thing I needed to do on Saturday was prepare the character packs for Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. So once I’d had a bite to eat, I popped back to the apartment to sort that out.

Messages from Callisto is set ten years after Children of the Stars, and decisions the players make in Children affects the background to Messages. I’d thought about this in advance and come up with options – so I had extra background and briefing sheets for each character. And now I knew what had happened in Messages, I could prepare Children.

(Would I do this again? It was a lot of work, but it was also very satisfying. So the answer is probably yes.)

Once I’d done that, I went back to the main area and got into a game of Villagers. While I was playing, I was asked if I’d fill a spare place in Better Than Life, as a player had dropped. So that was my evening sorted.

A Better Than Life Sandwich

A BTL Sandwich is a series of three short minigames featuring five characters. The scenes are all unrelated. It was written by Martin Jones for the Across the Universe weekend game, but he’s run these separately many times since.

The three minigames are all wonderful – tense, angsty and funny. The character sheets were all short, so it didn’t take much for me to catch up. It’s a great pick-up game.

The three minigames were:

• The Judgement of Solomon: The fate of a child hangs in the balance… I played the judge – and I might have played this before. There’s no good decision here – wonderfully angsty.
• The Gig at the End of the Universe: Inspired by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – and at about 30 minutes, probably the right length for a Hitchhiker’s game. The light relief to the other two more angsty games. I was Zaphod Beeblebrox, man! Delightful nonsense.
• Waiting: A dramatic game about waiting for aliens to attack. How long do you have, and what must you say before the end? Fabulously bleak.

Looking back, Better Than Life was one of my favourite games of the weekend. And it finished relatively early, which meant I was in bed by 11 am and got a good night’s sleep.

Sunday

A good night’s sleep left me refreshed for Sunday. I heard stories of people not getting to bed until 4 or 6 am. I don’t think I can do that.

Devil to Pay

Devil to Pay is a 26-player pirate freeform written by Brian Richburg and Alison Joy Schafer. It was an old-style freeform larp with long character sheets, rules, contingency envelopes, items, abilities and more. I found the long character sheet hard to read at first, but it soon made sense during play.

I played Laurens de Graaf, a Dutch privateer. To my surprise, my character survived. I was expecting to die horribly – but I won a duel and ended up with just enough loot to survive the game. It was great playing with Nickey, who was my wife and rescued our daughters before they could be killed in a pirate raid.

Messages from Callisto

Messages from Callisto follows Children of the Stars. It’s for 13 players, and I had four players who played in both games. Three played the same character. The fourth was a last-minute addition – I would have cast them as the same character had I known.

Thanks to a few typos (and some mistakes when stuffing envelopes), Messages from Callisto had a slightly creakier start than Children. But once it was going, it went well, and everyone seemed fully engaged and having deep discussions.

I have come away with a page of notes and improvements – but players told me later that they had a good time (and want to play other episodes), so that was all wonderful to hear. (I’ll probably reflect on that in a later post.)

Next year?

Next year, Consequences will move to a new venue. I suspect it will still be a long drive from Yorkshire, but I’m planning to go again.

Writing Children of the Stars (part 4 – running it)

With Children of the Stars finished (see here), it was time to run it.

Picking a date and casting

With five returning characters, I first emailed the players of those characters with a couple of potential dates to see when they were available.

With the date settled, I then emailed everyone who had played previously.

The hardest bit is waiting for players to sign up. Three days later, I had eight people; a couple of days after that, I posted notices on the uk-freeforms mailing list and Facebook remote larps group.

With a little over a week to go, I had 11 players – two short.

Who to drop?

With only 11 players, I looked at characters that might be dropped. I identified two – it wouldn’t be ideal if they were dropped, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

My options included:

• Finding two more players – that would be my favourite, but no guarantee of success. (I was running out of places to advertise it.)
• Give parts of the character to someone else – one character had information I wanted them to convey, so if I didn’t use that character, I would give it to someone else.

Let another player play two characters – one player volunteered to do that. If I do this, I’ll suggest that he plays his original character for the first scene but then plays both for the second scene (the additional character cannot attend the first scene).

Casting

My approach to casting was:

• First, those who had played before. They had agreed to play the characters from earlier episodes, so they were easy.
• Second, those who said “no” to lots of characters. For those players unwilling to play several characters, I cast them next (before those characters were taken).
• Then I cast the flexible players – those players who trust me and don’t mind playing any character are a godsend!

Finally, I double-checked the comments that players had left to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently miscast anyone.

Discord and Kumospace

Then I sent out the characters along with the Discord and Kumospace instructions. 

Disaster on the day

Unfortunately, things didn’t go that smoothly for play.

Although I’d written the game for 13 players, I had only 12 on the day. One player had kindly volunteered to play two characters, but unfortunately, he caught Covid and wasn’t well enough to play. So when it came to playing the game, I played his character and GM-ing the game. I don’t think I did either particularly well.

Then we had another technical challenge. While Discord was working fine, two players had problems with Kumospace. One was workable (it kept logging her out every few minutes ) but one player couldn’t get Kumospace working at all.

So I found running Children of the Stars very stressful. But from what I saw, most players enjoyed the game. I just need to remember that when I think about my experience!

During the game

So during the game, my attention was split. I was trying to play the missing characters and have an overview as the GM.

I’m not sure I did either well.

Luckily, those players who didn’t experience technical difficulties seemed to enjoy the game.

However, my sense of satisfaction was tainted by the challenges of the day.

Learning

A few points to consider for next time:

• Using both Discord and Kumospace may have been a bit much. I think Discord wasn’t needed for this game – I could have created different floors for Kumospace (or separate rooms on the same floor).
• It needed a little longer. In-person, this would be a three-hour game (but I’m hesitant to spend three hours online as I find that very tiring).
• I need to look at the structure – decisions I thought could be made at the end of the game needed to be made during it, but I didn’t spot that until we were running.
• I liked the two-part structure I created and may do that again.

Feedback and Epilogues

I asked for feedback following The Roswell Incident and All Flesh is Grass, and I did the same for Children of the Stars. Some players completed the form promptly, while others dragged their heels.

I used the feedback to create an epilogue for the game, which consisted of news about the big announcements and what the characters did after the freeform. This time there were big changes, and the game history is veering away from real history – aliens are among us!

Next game

The day after the game, my mind was already full of ideas for the next one, tentatively called Messages from Callisto.

Hopefully, it won’t take me six months to write! 

Writing Children of the Stars (Part 3)

This is the third part where I describe how I wrote Children of the Stars, the third part of my first-contact freeform series.

Because I’m discussing plots in this post, it’s pretty spoilery.

Here’s the overall process.

The process

1. Choose a subject
2. Themes
3. Character basics
4. Outline characters
5. Character Sheets
6. Structure
7. Plots
8. Rules and mechanics
9. Background
10. Finishing off

So far I’ve worked out who my characters are, and I’ve decided on the setting and structure of the game. It’s time for stage 7—plots.

My approach to writing Children of the Stars is that, although the series is linked (and has some returning characters), I want it to be playable by anyone. So I’ve tried to write characters and plots to be self-contained. (I may not be the best person to judge.)

Step 7 Plots

I started with The Midwich Cuckoos plot—the players must decide what to do about a village of strange children. To bring in an international angle (the previous two freeforms were US-only), I introduced several international characters who had villages of their own to deal with and hadn’t decided what to do about them.

In The Midwich Cuckoos novel, the Russians nuke “their” village, and I wanted that to be an option.

I organised the plots so they were each in their own Word file. I wrote the plot from the character’s perspective, including background, other people, objectives, and any handouts (or contingencies).

Once I had the cuckoos plot done, I started on the other plots:

The science projects: There are more science projects wanting funding than funds available—and several people have pet projects they want funding. Which projects will be funded?

Steering humanity: The aliens already on Earth have plans—but they conflict. It’s time for them to settle their differences—what do they choose? And are they going to make first contact with humans?

The Consciousness: The alien encountered in All Flesh is Grass has withdrawn cooperation with the US government. What is it up to?

Intelligence task force: Some characters want to start an international task force for dealing with aliens. Will they succeed?

As I wrote the characters, I filled in a plot matrix, which I used to check that none of the characters had too little to do.

Assemble the characters

With the plots written, I then assembled the characters by copying and pasting the text from the plot documents into a blank character sheet.

In a few cases I needed to adjust the plot text to make the character flow properly, but that’s normal.

The last character

Once I had pulled all the characters together, I thought I had finished—then I remembered I needed a replacement character (in case one of the early scenes became violent). So I created a conspiracy nut writing a book about aliens—and let me pull in details from the first two games.

Step 8 Rules and mechanics

Children of the Stars is a purely talky-freeform. There are no items or abilities. There is one handout, for a character if they think to ask about something. But that’s about it.

Step 9 Background

I wrote the backgrounds as I wrote the plots. I ended up with four background documents:

• Setting and cast list: As described last time.
• Alien #1 background: I based this on the background sheet I used for All Flesh is Grass, updated slightly with some new information.
• Alien #2 background: This was a new sheet, but I used the same structure as the alien #1 background, which saved some work.
• US intelligence briefing: This was new information for the US government characters about what happened in Millville (in All Flesh is Grass) and what has happened since then.

Step 10 Finishing off

Step 10 can feel like it takes forever—getting everything ready so that a game can be run can take ages. But it didn’t take long for Children of the Stars, as I hadn’t written complicated rules, abilities or items.

• PDFs: I created pdfs of the game files (the characters and backgrounds) ready for sending to players.
• GM notes: I started a GM notes file. Should I set the game up so others can run it, I must work on this, but at the moment, the most important thing it has is a game timetable and the single handout.
• Discord and Kumospace: I’m running the game online, using Discord and Kumospace, and I have set these two up. I have also prepared an information sheet for the players on how to get the best from Discord and Kumospace.
• Sign-up sheet: I’ve prepared a Google Forms signup sheet and casting form.
• Post-game survey: I’ve prepared a post-game survey in Google Forms.

Next time

With the game ready, it’s time to run it. 

Writing Children of the Stars (part 2)

Last time I covered the initial steps in writing Children of the Stars. This time I’ll talk about outline characters, setting, character sheets and structure. Before I do, here’s a reminder of my overall process for writing freeform larps:

The process

1. Choose a subject
2. Themes
3. Character basics
4. Outline characters
5. Character Sheets
6. Structure
7. Plots
8. Rules and mechanics
9. Background
10. Finishing off

So far I’ve done stages 1 and 3 (although as you’ll see, I’ve also pretty much nailed 5 and 6.)

(You can read the overall summary of the process here.)

Step 4 Outline characters

The next step is to write character outlines, so I know who the characters are when I come to dropping them into plots.

This is an example: 

McDonald: US government Chief Science Director. Early 50s.

• Start: Washington
• Continuing character? No.
• Plots: Science projects, the children, keeping America in front
• Opening para: You are Chief Science Director McDonald—you are responsible for allocating America’s science budget. The budget needs fixing in two weeks’ time, and while much of it is already allocated, you still have funds still unallocated. While you like to keep an open mind, your main priority is maintaining America’s technological leading edge. (You are very proud of American achievements like the space shuttle.)

I kept these brief and wrote them for all thirteen characters. 

Setting and background

At this point, I also wrote the setting and background. I like to settle this early so I have a clear idea of where the game is set. With some help from A Year in History: Timeline of 1983 Events I ended up with this:

It is 1983. The space shuttle has been flying for two years. Michael Jackson’s Thriller tops the US album charts. W and Z particles discovered at CERN. The last-ever episode of M*A*S*H is screened. The CD player is released. Pioneer 10 crosses the orbit of Pluto. Return of the Jedi completes the Star Wars trilogy. Over a million people demonstrate against nuclear weapons at a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march in London, England. A baboon embryo is successfully ‘conceived’ in a laboratory dish in San Antonio, Texas. ARPANET is moves to TCP/IP. The Soviet shuttle Soyuz T-10 explodes on launch. The first version of Microsoft Word is released.

And in December, the 1983 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Science Conference is held in Geneva, Switzerland.

Cast

• Dr Abdaluni: NASA’s Chief Scientist. Mid 40s.
• Dr Bakker: A scientist working for the US defence contractor Shark Systems Inc. Mid 30s.
• General Billings: Head of the USA’s Department of Extra-Terrestrial Defense (DETD). Mid 60s.
• Dr Blake: Head of the US’s Xenobiology Forensic Investigation of Life and Extra-terrestrial Science Working Group. Early 70s.
• Dr Chén: Administrator in the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Mid 40s.
• Jackson: A retired bounty hunter. Mid 60s.
• McDonald: Newly-appointed US government Chief Science Director. Early 50s.
• Dr Russo: US science advisor. Mid 30s.
• Saito: Hosata Manufacturing executive. Late 20s.
• Sánchez: An intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech. Mid 20s.
• Dr Sokolov: Director at the USSR Academy of Sciences. Mid 30s.
• Dr Visser: UNESCO Deputy Science Director. Mid 40s.
• Dr Wescott: UK science advisor. Mid 40s.

This is the public information that’s also on the game website.

Step 5 Character sheets

I like to define my character sheets at this point so I know what sections I am writing for the players.

However, I already had this sorted as I was using the same character sheet layout I used for The Roswell Incident and All Flesh is Grass (the earlier two episodes).

These character sheets consisted of a background section, followed by “Other Folk” (for information that character knew about other people) and then “Your objectives” (for that character’s goals for the game). The sheets also had starting locations and suggested first moves, although I knew that would be less important this time.

Step 6 Structure

I also knew the structure of Children of the Stars, as that was one thing I decided early on. This is what the game structure looks like.

• Start: Welcome and introductions
• 0 to 30-45 minutes: Characters start in initial groups.
• 30-45 to 150 minutes: UNESCO science convention
• 150 minutes: Game end and decisions

So I think it will be about 2.5 hours long—maybe three hours.

NEXT TIME

So I’ve done all this and haven’t started writing any plots yet! That changes next time.

Writing Children of the Stars (part 1)

Children of the Stars is the third part of The Fermi Solution, my ongoing series of small (13 player, 2-3 hour) freeforms about first contact with aliens. The Roswell Incident and All Flesh is Grass were the first and second, and you can read about them here on my blog.

I’m also collecting the various “how to write a freeform” essays and articles I’ve written over the years. I’m pulling them into a single document; when it’s done, I’ll put it on Lulu. And as I’m writing about the freeform process (overall summary here), I thought I’d better use Children of the Stars as an example (as I sometimes cut corners, as we’ll see).

Basic themes

I didn’t start writing Children of the Stars until I had run All Flesh is Grass and got all the feedback. I didn’t know what I wanted from it, other than to get the big projects that would affect world history started.

I also knew there would be another first-contact situation to deal with, as that’s a theme of the games. (I may have to ease off in future games because I’m ending up with so many aliens!)

The Roswell Incident and All Flesh is Grass are both set in the USA, and I wanted more of an international feel this time. So I’ve set Children of the Stars at a UNESCO science convention in Geneva.

So my themes became:

• First contact: There are already aliens concealed amongst humanity. I want them to think about revealing themselves to humanity.
• Science projects: The players need to decide which science projects to fund—of course, there are conflicting interests, and which projects are funded will affect future episodes.
• All Flesh is Grass followup: The last game ended with an impasse—what has happened since?
• The Cuculus: The new alien.
• Protecting national interests: With different countries represented, national interests will become important.
• The Harvesters: The Harvesters are my Big Bad. So far, they’ve only been hinted at. 

And then a detour

In both the previous games, I started each game by having the players start in predetermined locations for them to roleplay a while before getting properly started. This time, I wanted to do more than that.

I also wanted to solve a problem we had in writing Diemos Down at Peaky 2022. We started Diemos Down with a flashback, but we hadn’t structured the character sheets correctly and it was confusing for the players.

I didn’t want a flashback, but I wanted two scenes separated by a few days. But I wanted to give the players their entire character sheets as I didn’t want to break the game while everyone read the second part of their character sheet.

So to address that, I structured the character sheets in two parts, each with its own background and objectives. Part 2 is at the conference in Geneva. Part 1 is one of four locations, depending on the characters.

And because this was a relatively new thing for me, I thought I’d try it out by writing a couple of the characters first.

This is not how I recommend writing a freeform, and you won’t see that suggested in my book. In my defence, I was trying something new, and I wanted to see if I could make it work before I went any further.

I think my approach will work, but I won’t find out until I run it.

The process

This is my overall process for writing a freeform.

1. Choose a subject
2. Themes
3. Character basics
4. Outline characters
5. Character Sheets
6. Structure
7. Plots
8. Rules and mechanics
9. Background
10. Finishing off

Step 3 Character basics

So with 1 and 2 complete, I needed to think about character basics. I already knew I wanted some returning characters, so my first task was to choose them. I ended up with five returning characters (it’s nice if the same players play them, but I intend to write the game so that a new player can pick those characters up).

I planned this around the two-part structure I had developed. So (and without giving too much away):

• Mexico: Two characters and a revelation.
• Washington: Four American government-types discuss science projects—there’s never enough money.
• Paris: Four international scientists/intelligence officers consider an alarming alien presence.
• Morocco: Three characters discuss the future.

And that was my thirteen characters.

Next time

Next time, we talk about outline characters, character sheets and structure.